Integrate!

Have you played this game before? If you could choose one superpower what would it be? Would you predict the future (awkward!) or fly without a plane? Would you move faster than light or would you be able to stretch to meet every requirement? © Can Stock Photo / yarruta I would learn.  If I could choose a superpower, I would choose learning. Learning drives everything. Test it out.  Can you be learning and be unmotivated? If you are learning, curiosity has kicked in and curiosity is the best form of motivation. Curiosity keeps you trying one more solution to that problem or turning one more page or walking to the next turn in the road. And don't even try to be depressed while you are learning. You can't be focused on the next page, the next answer, the next turn and be stuck. Can you be learning and not be creative? I don't think so. Learning thrives on novelty and connection and those are the two ingredients of innovation. When you are learning, you're will...

Sometimes you need to get people talking so that they can generate new conversations. Within conversation, it's possible to share beliefs, energy and facts in ways that lead to new thinking and new results. So how do you set up a productive conversation? Often, I work with people who do not yet know each other. I warm them up with a combination of slightly surprising perspectives and the larger surprise that someone is paying attention to them. I set them up with a question to explore or a story to tell and instructions to practice. And then they have conversations. Their phones stay on the table, and their eyes get brighter, and the noise and the energy in the room builds. They get curious and engaged and then they get satisfied. Because real conversation satisfies the need of the human animal to connect and move. © Can Stock Photo / edharcanstock Sometimes I work with people who already know each other. That's much harder for 3 reasons: It's hard to warm them ...

I bet you've tried to talk about a problem with someone and come away more confused and unhappy than you started. It's happened to all of us. We know that other people's ideas hold some kind of key to finding what we need. Yet talking about our problems often leads to new problems. Here's a better way. Understand what kind of help you want and behave in ways that make it more likely you'll get it. Consider these three possibilities: Have a conversation to learn how someone else solved a similar problem. This means listening to their story and being curious about it. It doesn't mean leaping to conclusions or trying to apply it to your own situation before you've heard the whole story. Have a conversation to learn how someone was able to persist until they found a solution. This doesn't require that the problem they solved was like the problem you want to solve. Instead, as you listen to the story, ask questions about what was true in their attitu...